Piranha 3D (2010)

The days of classic B-Movies are long gone and ironically it's the fault of technology.  In their heyday B-Movies succeeded not on special effects or million dollar budgets but on imagination and a certain level of ambiance which was successful in drawing the attention of the viewers no matter how corny the script or plot may have been.  Filmmakers took sometimes no more than a few hundred thousand dollars and turned a campy idea into something halfway believable, where shoddy special effects actually worked to the film's advantage.  But now a days when CGI is so incredibly inexpensive and easy to put together, B-Movies have become even more simplistic and over-the-top than ever before. The one true innovator in the B-Movie genre during it's heyday was Producer/Director Roger Corman, now thirty-two years after the release of one of his more popular films, Piranha, the prehistoric fish are back and experiencing a 21st century, Hollywood face lift.

The plot of Piranha 3D is pretty simple because there isn't much of one.  The film stars Steven R. McQueen (grandson of film legend Steve McQueen and co-star on the hit CW series The Vampire Diaries) as Jake Forester, a Lake Victoria local whose asked to show Wild Wild Girls creator Derrick Jones (Jerry O'Connell) some good lake locations to shoot his new upcoming skin flick.  Jake jumps at the chance to spend a day on a boat with Derrick's two hottie's Danni and Crystal (Kelly Brook and Riley Steele) but has to find a way out of babysitting his brother and sister while his Mom (Elizabeth Shue), the Sheriff, is trying to keep this spring break crowds under control.  But all that really ceases to matter once the prehistoric piranhas, who due to seismic activity were released from a cavern under the floor of the lake, attack and all hell breaks loose.

Piranha 3D is the type of film you need to be fully aware of what your getting into prior to going in otherwise you're simply wasting your time and money and you'll probably walk out (which I saw a few people do).  This film is a strong R so if you're a parent you shouldn't be bringing your kids along (which I saw a few "parents" had).  For me seeing Piranha 3D was a pretty large step out of my usual norm, as a film with such a massive amount of gore and glands isn't anything I normally care to see or find to be entertaining.  But having recently seen the original and then witnessing the level of carnage in a few of the trailers, combined with my love for Kelly Brook, I was strangely eager to check it out.

In comparing the original Piranha to the "new improved" Piranha 3D I'm left in the unusual predicament of feeling about the same in regards to both films for completely opposite reasons.  In other words the aspects I liked about each film were aspects that were not present in the other.  Example: my main gripes about Corman's Piranha was that it seemed overly tame in terms of the gore and the acting extremely bland, where in Piranha 3D the gore factor is ten times greater and oddly enough the acting isn't that bad, at least it's a lot better than the original.  But on the flip-side the original Piranha succeeds in having at least a more realistic storyline and execution along with a semi creepy ambiance, where Piranha 3D's story is utter garbage and not even mildly creepy.

Piranha 3D is not only receiving attention for it's extreme amount of carnage but it's fair amount of boobage.  As I've stated before this isn't a typical viewing for me so I have utterly no comparison as to whether the amount of nudity in this film is more than has ever been done before or not.  It's more than I've ever seen in a film, but again that's not saying much.  My personal opinon about nudity in films is it's really never necessary, and Piranha 3D is the poster child for unnecessary nudity.  Not only is the nudity in this film not necessary it's almost insulting.  Insulting in the sense that it's so blatantly flippant and also that with a budget of 24 million dollars those in charge weren't too picky about who took their top off, aside from Kelly Brook and Riley Steele the rest of the boob baring babes were "chum", and I was all too happy to see the piranhas take care of them.  Oddly enough at the end of the day the film's use of nudity is so inane that I struggle to even remember half of it, aside from the underwater sequence between Brook and Steele and the beastly looking chick on the para-glider (which is horribly burned into my brain) it's all pointlessly forgettable and seems to be solely thrown in for the pleasure of pre-pubescent boys who shouldn't be seeing this in the first place.

So what's my overall consensus?  Well, had the positives of Piranha and Piranha 3D been combined into one film I'd probably be singing it's praises right now.  A film with a decent story, creepy and realistic ambiance, substantial amount of gore, average acting, limited nudity and Kelly Brook, would be something worth possibly recommending, but neither Piranha or Piranha 3D is that film.  For a morning showing at a $6 ticket price in 2D (don't waste your money on 3D there's nothing in this film that would have benefited from it even if 3D was worth it) I didn't feel robbed.  But I can't in all honesty act like some of the critics and say it's a barrel of campy fun.  Sure I laughed once or twice, and found the piranhas ridding the gene pool of a bunch of wasted, smart-ass college students oddly entertaining and Kelly Brook is incredibly easy on the eyes.  But aside from that unless you're a person who watches these types of story-less goregasms on a daily basis you'd probably be safer renting or completely skipping it altogether, because honestly there's nothing memorable here, it's simply a momentary sugar high. 

6/10